New Skills system versus Old Jobs system.

[Sasza22]

I guess the new system forces specialization. Althrough i`d prefer if there was a "learning" period after you selesct a job before the dupe gets the extra stats but i guess it works. Dupes mastering everything was pretty boring in the end. You were just looking if the dupe mastered all the jobs under the morale expectation they got. It was just mindless clicking. Now you have to specialize them or get unrealisitc morale. I think it`s not that bad.

Magical relearning is unrealisitc but i can live with it. Not like they were getting skills by wearing a hat before. I`d just prefer if they needed some time to fully master their new skillset.

[Zarquan]

7 hours ago, DMFan79 said:

I'm usually against punishing systems in games, but in this case, losing a little amount of xp could be seen as a proper balancing for this function.

I'm neutral regarding this change. I'm sure this new system will be more appealing for a broader public of gamers since it adds a fun RP mechanic. The previous system was flat and boring, besides, you ended up with all dupes being good at everything.

How about you can remove a skill point, but you can never reassign them (meaning they are lost).  That way, they don't effect the morale requirements, but it isn't a free respec.  I guess you could lose the level too so you can get the skill point back over time.

[chemie]

1 hour ago, nakomaru said:

The new system makes me turn off the stress system because I want every skill and there aren't tools in the game to do that. Now there's no reason to care about morale or decor at all, which I used to care about a little bit.

what happens if you over skill a dup only to realize you can't get their morale any higher due to hard game limit?  you have to kill the dup is a bad answer for game design.  max morale has to match max achievable morale 

57 minutes ago, nakomaru said:

Also I haven't confirmed the max of 50, but that's the simple calculation.

I believe it is 52 in qol2 mostly from memory

[beowulf2010]

Granted, I'm only 25ish cycles into a new base, but I like the skill change so far. The fact that I can bank skill points until I want/need to use them means I'm not constantly switching to new jobs so that I'm not "wasting" job experience is good for me. 

 I've always gone for specialized priorities on my dupes anyway and now I have an easier way to see what each dupe knows. 

So far? I like it. 

[goboking]

1 hour ago, M.C. said:

Okay. This has a distinct did-not-think-this-through feel to it. In the previous version, the end state is unchanging because every dupe excels at everything. In the new version, the end state is also unchanging because you've reached the morale cap and the game doesn't give you the tools to raise it.

It would have been a good change if they gave us those tools. Until they do, this change will remain a dumbass move.

You didn't get the tools to hit the cap because they don't want you to hit the cap.  The entire point of this change is to encourage you to specialize you dupes.  Gone are the days of colonies full of masters-of-all-trades.

 

1 hour ago, nakomaru said:

The new system makes me turn off the stress system because I want every skill and there aren't tools in the game to do that. Now there's no reason to care about morale or decor at all, which I used to care about a little bit.

You complaining about a lack of reason to care about a feature that you've personally disabled?

[Gus Smedstad]

3 minutes ago, nakomaru said:

Yes, I think a system that incentivizes me to turn off a much larger part of the game is a bad design.

You're only turning that off because you're refusing to accept the idea that you need to specialize your Dupes now. Now not every Dupe can perform every task. That's not a bad design, that's you refusing to accept a restriction that makes the game a little harder.

It's not clear to me that it's really that much of a burden, since only some of the skills enable abilities. A great many of them just add skill points. I need to playtest it more to see how much of a limitation it really is.

[goboking]

1 minute ago, nakomaru said:

Yes, I think a system that incentivizes me to turn off a much larger part of the game is a bad design.

I'm just throwing out the possibility that the problem is actually your unwillingness to change your play style and not the change itself.  If you're rigid in your insistence that your dupes should be masters-of-all-trades while the developers are actively buildings systems to prevent just that, then I'm not sure there's a solution that's going to make you happy.

[Gus Smedstad]

Just now, nakomaru said:

Since everyone likes their new chains, looks like professional game designers made the right choice.

"Chains" as you put them are almost always a good thing. Restrictions mean you have to make choices. Not making choices is easy and uninteresting; making choices is, at root, what games are about.

Personally, I was aware that the previous Jobs system was somewhat mediocre from the moment I realized I could cross-train every Dupe to do everything, given enough time. I was also aware that you could completely circumvent the Morale system by assigning Dupes to low-level jobs, or even no job at all, once they had mastered the Jobs you wanted. Morale was a transient requirement.

This looks like a step in the right direction, but I'm a little concerned that it has balance issues. I suspect it's now too easy to train specialists in the early game, because the morale requirements for advancement appear to be lower.

[Zarquan]

I feel like a skill based system makes some sense, but I think it isn't very good yet because it trivializes morale.  I can do anything I want in the early game with 3 morale, and then instantly have an astronaut.  Also, you can completely ignore entire trees because of lack of effect.  Plus, I would like to be able to specialize my dupes from the beginning.  I think that a few changes are needed:

1.  All dupes should start with 1 skill point in the beginning.
2. You can only have 1 unspent skill at a time.  If you haven't spent it, the dupe doesn't gain experience and can't level up to get a new skill point (assuming every skill requires 1 skill point)
3. The skill remover removes a single skill point AND reduces the level of the dupe by 1 (potentially excluding the original skill point)
4. High level construction should have an effect other than speed.  Perhaps any building that requires refined metals requires construction 1, plastics requires construction 2, and steel and space materials requires construction 3.
5. Top level mining should have an effect.  Perhaps making digging diamond take mining 3.

Also, the impossibly high morale requirement for dupes who are jack of all trades is fine in my opinion.  No dupe should be expected to do everything and it increases the complexity of dupe management.

[pacovf]

I sure hope they keep dupes earning xp while they have unspent skill points, or at least a moderate amount of them. Having to micro job assignments for all your dupes is arguably the worst part of the previous system.

Your other points seem fine. Somebody suggested making higher level mining make dupes recover more than just 50% of the tile, that seemed like a good idea.

[goboking]

1 minute ago, pacovf said:

Your other points seem fine. Somebody suggested making higher level mining make dupes recover more than just 50% of the tile, that seemed like a good idea.

That would work. 

For architects, I've seen scaffolding (being essentially ladders than can be built in front of or behind buildings) as a perk for higher level architects suggested a few times.

[Gus Smedstad]

Yeah, unless I'm missing something, it's now far, far too easy to get level 3 of specialization in a skill. It used to be that it was a struggle to get the morale required to get a level-3 skill. Now it's trivial, just a matter of time, and you can put far less effort into boosting morale in the early game.

I'd like to see an absolute morale requirement for higher level skills, pretty much like what we had for jobs before. In addition to the morale requirement based on Dupe level.

[WanderingKid]

Great Hall, Showers, Lavatories, Barracks were an easy 12 morale.  Dump a bunch of plants around and you could mostly trivialize tier 3 in the morale system as it was anyway, all you'd need was a minor offset to the stress... such as new dupes and the occasional conversation.

I spent my free time yesterday screwing around with old bases so I'm playing catch up.  So far I'm finding the skill/xp system more confusing than anything... and that on cycle 3.  I can't figure out what xp my dupes have earned, and I'm not getting a notification that they've gained a skill point.  This is probably because I still haven't researched the job board.  My dupes are mostly working on preferred interests, but my dedicated researcher is the last one to still be at 0 skill points.  My initial issues with the new system are and aren't the implementation, it's the fact that I can't see/figure out what's going on yet and how they're being applied.

 

[Coolthulhu]

So far it looks like a massive improvement compared to the old mess.

Has some problems, but nothing as bad as the old manual dupe shifting.

[chemie]

1 hour ago, beowulf2010 said:

Granted, I'm only 25ish cycles into a new base, but I like the skill change so far. The fact that I can bank skill points until I want/need to use them means I'm not constantly switching to new jobs so that I'm not "wasting" job experience is good for me. 

 I've always gone for specialized priorities on my dupes anyway and now I have an easier way to see what each dupe knows. 

So far? I like it. 

I have not played so curious.  old jobs you HAD to have a miner, cook, artist to perform the task. this forced you to address moral. is this still the case?  if not  you could ignore it as it only speeds the task vs blocks it?  so no morale issues if you dont want faster dups?

[Zarquan]

21 minutes ago, pacovf said:

I sure hope they keep dupes earning xp while they have unspent skill points, or at least a moderate amount of them. Having to micro job assignments for all your dupes is arguably the worst part of the previous system.

I don't believe this would require microing job progress like the old system did.  I believe it will stop players from stockpiling points for when they get a higher consistent morale.  I know that's what I'm doing.  When I get exosuits, I assure you all my dupes will suddenly be masters of the supply jobs and an exosuit engineer overnight.

Just now, chemie said:

I have not played so curious.  old jobs you HAD to have a miner, cook, artist to perform the task.  is this still the case?  if not  you could ignore it as it only speeds the task vs blocks it?

Yes, to make art, you need the art skill.  To cook, you need the cook skill, etc.

[Gus Smedstad]

8 minutes ago, WanderingKid said:

Great Hall, Showers, Lavatories, Barracks were an easy 12 morale.  Dump a bunch of plants around and you could mostly trivialize tier 3 in the morale system as it was anyway, all you'd need was a minor offset to the stress... such as new dupes and the occasional conversation.

Thing is, however easy it is to get +12 morale early, morale requirements appear to be lower across the board now. You can get astronauts now with that easy 12 morale now. I think that's true, anyway, I haven't tried it in practice.

[chemie]

28 minutes ago, Zarquan said:

 

Yes, to make art, you need the art skill.  To cook, you need the cook skill, etc.

so you cant dig advanced materials for a specific amount of game time?  I hope it is not longer than the old time to get to next dig tier

[Junksteel]

Seems nobody liked having dupes good at everything. 

I mean, I didn't care about the system, its concept or design, but a functional and fast paced base where everyone was able to do pretty much anything.

It used to save a lot of time in the end game spend with micro management of job priority. At a certain point, you could just ignore that. And I understand that a system that can be ignored is probably a bad one.

But, as more elaborate as it is right now, I still don't feel fine with it and actually didn't have any fun last night playing around it. I'll give it more hours tonight to understand how it will impact my playstyle long term.

But so far, I'm with Nakomaru and don't find the new system very fun. I like having mutant dupes good at everything and I would pay any price to have that back.

But hey, it's just me and I still have to spend more time with the new system.

[WanderingKid]

3 minutes ago, Junksteel said:

But, as more elaborate as it is right now, I still don't feel fine with it and actually didn't have any fun last night playing around it. I'll give it more hours todnight to understand how it will impact my playstyle long term.

But so far, I'm with Nakomaru and don't find ithe new system very fun. I like having mutant dupes good at everything and I would pay any price to have that back.

Out of curiosity what's your usual base's cycle time?  Even at 150 cycles I typically was pushing my masons just into exosuits after gaining Tier1/2/3 on Mining, Architect, and Gofer/Courier.  I certainly didn't have my chefs involved in those build concerns, or things like that.

If you're talking 'super dupes' at cycle 1000, I'm not sure you'd even have an issue.  At that point you're still living in a giant décor bomb eating BBQ and Pepper Bread

[Zarquan]

8 minutes ago, chemie said:

so you can dig advanced materials for a specific amount of game time?  I hope it is not longer than the old time to get to next dig tier

I think it is about the same time for abyssalite, but it takes longer for granite because you have to level up before you can dig granite (unless they execute my suggestions).

8 minutes ago, Junksteel said:

Seems nobody liked having dupes good at everything. 

I wouldn't go that far.  What I would say is that people recognized it was too easy to get dupes that were good at everything.

[Junksteel]

 

13 minutes ago, WanderingKid said:

Out of curiosity what's your usual base's cycle time?  Even at 150 cycles I typically was pushing my masons just into exosuits after gaining Tier1/2/3 on Mining, Architect, and Gofer/Courier.  I certainly didn't have my chefs involved in those build concerns, or things like that.

If you're talking 'super dupes' at cycle 1000, I'm not sure you'd even have an issue.  At that point you're still living in a giant décor bomb eating BBQ and Pepper Bread

1000+.... you must be right. I'm worried about people mentioning 50 Morale which I never reached as average for my dupes and don't even know how I'd manage to keep them post 45 all the time. For sure, something I never done before. Having to try new strategies is a good thing, but I' don't even know where I should start to keep that high morale

(Ofc, this scenario is true in case I feel like having every single dupe mastering all professions. It was what I used to do, but seems not to be so feasible now. So a bit disapointing for my playstyle as far as I can see, but I didn't full understand the new system to say for sure it's bad. I just don't love it right now)

[WanderingKid]

2 minutes ago, Junksteel said:

(In case I feel like willing to have every single dupe mastering all professions. It was what I used to do, but seems not to be so feasible now. So a bit disapointing for my playstyle as far as I can see, but I didn't full understand the new system to say for sure it's bad)

You can still do that, and it's probably easier. The time it took to get 'all dupes' morale is high enough that no matter which way you do it (I tend to spike morale for specialization, old Tenured hurt, new one is a joke).  In this case, I feel that you'll have the similar issues for your morale, but now you'll spike early specialization and then level out 'all dupes' later, as Courier/exosuit is cheap now.

My personal issues with the system is still I don't think there's enough information for the player about the xp gains and being able to anticipate when new skill upgrades will be available as you play.  It's just a blind box and now and then you check it and 'Oh, hey!  Skill points!'

[0xFADE]

I’ll parrot the opinion that changing important systems like this(and germs) so close to release is a problem. More of the dev time is now going to be spent on fixing these new problems. 

[lunazone]

I think the system really didn't need an overhaul, I think it was fine